Weekly News #174

Version 0.971b is already available for download for subscribers of the Super Best Friend tier ($25). To view the post with this version, follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/released-0-971b-143626850

Version 0.971a is already available for download for subscribers of the Best Friend tier ($10). To view the post with this version, follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/released-0-971a-142884764

So, another week and a half has passed since our last weekly news release, in which we covered a lot of what we've done. This short period of time has been no exception, introducing some innovative mechanics and features to the game, as well as some of the features that many have requested and complained about. But first things first.

The first thing worth mentioning is the interface for choosing what your character will do during classes at the Academy. They can study successfully, ignore the lesson, or interact with others there. Everything is up to you, and the success of any interaction depends on your character's Dexterity attribute, and the results can be seen below:

Furthermore, we've also added a new scene featuring randomized female NPCs who are studying with your character. This can be triggered when your character interacts with someone during class—it improves relationships and allows you to better manage your time if necessary and if your primary goal is to gain someone's approval or authority.

Also worth mentioning is the buddy system for randomized NPCs: they have friends with whom they now prefer to form groups, travel together, and interact with each other, making the game world more alive than it was before.

Secondly, the plot changes. The main thing to mention here is that the Yuki Oota storyline is almost completely finished and will soon be ready for integration into the game. We won't say more about it to avoid spoilers, but just so you know, we're working on it quite actively right now. Speaking of scenes and new features, we currently have a sketch for one of the 18+ scenes ready, which you can see at this link: https://x.com/kaitosi11/status/1989383666766876758.

Third, some system changes. This is where we implemented the most interesting changes, which are available right now. For example, due to frequent complaints about grinding, which was present in our game in one way or another, we decided to introduce the ability to avoid it using a daily schedule system for your character:

You can set a time for your character for each hour of the day, avoiding unnecessary grinding: go to the academy, go to work, do push-ups in your room to increase your strength, or take a shower. Now you don't have to do all of this manually, as you can now customize every little detail and make it automatic, so it's done without your presence.

Another important mechanic that was removed was Favorites for the main interaction menu. It seemed quite useful, but now we've brought it back—you'll be able to add everything to Favorites. From locations and location-based actions to NPCs, they will be displayed in a corresponding list with a star icon, where you can select the NPC, location-based action, or sublocation you want.

Furthermore, we've also created an interface for your character's sleep. Here, you can configure whether it's a full night's sleep or a nap, a simple, unremarkable rest. You can also set an alarm, see how much time will pass after sleep, and overall, the entire system has become more comprehensive than before, allowing you to more flexibly adjust your character's bedtime to your preferences and desires.

Also, some minor changes: we've added a full-screen mode to the graphics settings category in the game settings.

When playing in Chinese, you can now edit the name dictionaries used to generate NPCs in your own language, just like you could with Russian or English. Additionally, the Chinese translation has been improved thanks to RogerJKD.

Fourth, bug fixes and code refactoring. A lot of work was done here as well, and it's worth mentioning, but in changelog format. It's also relevant for version 971b:

New content:

A new location-based interface interaction has been added to the corresponding location-based activities menu: Daily Routine. There, you can reduce unnecessary in-game clicks by creating a personal schedule that your character can execute independently, without your presence: going to work, jogging in the park, etc.

Now, during Academy classes, you can customize how your character spends their time: studying and increasing their intelligence, resting and conserving energy, or chatting with someone nearby. Each additional interaction outside of class becomes increasingly difficult, and your character's dexterity attribute affects their chances of success.

The Favorites system has been added, or rather, reinstated, with improvements to the game's main menu, the corresponding interface where you interact with the game: you can now add not only NPCs to your Favorites, but also sublocations, location-based actions, and other related gameplay moments, all in the appropriate category, allowing you to sort them according to your preferences.

Clicking the "Sleep" location interaction now opens a corresponding interface where you, as the player, can choose how long your character should sleep: full sleep, a nap, or a short rest. You can also set an alarm there, and several new systems and mechanics have been added that improve sleep interactions and make them more enjoyable.

A new scene with randomized female NPCs has been added to the game. Currently, it only appears when your character is actively interacting with a girl during activities (as mentioned above).

A friend system has been added to the game for NPCs: they have friends with whom they now prefer to form groups, walk together, and interact, making the game world more lively.

A button for adjusting fullscreen mode has been added to the game's graphics settings category when playing on a PC device.

When playing in Chinese, you can now edit lists with their names: everything works the same as with English/Russian.

Code refactoring has been performed in the club activity detection functions and related systems: the activity detector itself has been improved, some exceptions that arose there have been fixed, and system performance has been improved to reduce the number of crashes and related issues.

Systems related to the display of the RNPC on the screen have been refactored: the appearance caching system, displaying shadows on the background, and certain functions responsible for all of this have been improved. This has made the system slightly more performant and user-friendly, and loading times when entering the RNPC interface have been reduced.

The code responsible for displaying backgrounds and the corresponding filters has been refactored: this has improved overall game performance, backgrounds themselves are now displayed more accurately, and filters no longer distort the image as before.

The code responsible for interactions with randomized NPCs has been refactored: it has become more understandable, flexible, and less problematic. Exceptions, some interface corruptions, and other issues have been reduced, and the system itself is now easier to modify.

The code that generates randomized NPCs has been refactored: it is now more modular, understandable, stable, and generally operates on different systems than before, ensuring greater diversity in randomized NPCs throughout a game session.

In the hug scene with a randomized NPC, female NPCs and your character are now shown in swimsuits rather than clothing, if they were wearing a swimsuit during the interaction via the corresponding menu.

In the breast groping scene with a female NPC, these women are now shown in swimsuits rather than clothing, if they were wearing a swimsuit during the interaction via the corresponding menu.

Some exclusive in-game events have been added when your character is female.

Fixed bugs:

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to change the group activity status for NPCs in some rare gameplay scenarios.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to connect to their email/nickname in-game if the player lived in certain regions.

Fixed a bug where opening the modifications page could cause exceptions without any apparent reason – everything now works reliably and as intended.

Fixed a bug where the views and likes bar for each modification did not work when entering the modifications menu, meaning that rating and other bars were useless.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to open scenes with randomized NPCs, both 18+ and regular, due to an inability to recognize the skin color of the target female NPC.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw exceptions during the story with Ayano Yoshida in some rare gameplay situations and the event where your character joins the Occultism Club through the student council.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to open the battle interface with randomized NPCs in some rare cases where this interface had never opened before, but was forced to close voluntarily.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to open the interaction interface with a randomized NPC when it was impossible to determine the nose type at all.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game console, where cheats and commands were entered, to become cluttered with excessive log data about certain modules and game systems, making the console difficult to use.

Fixed a bug that could cause events featuring the story character Suzuki Matsui to trigger under incorrect conditions, without taking into account the required number of days' delay, or to not trigger at all, even if other conditions were met.

Fixed a bug where, when playing in English, the game would sometimes not display the English translation if the cooking interface in your character's room was open and you were looking at a dish's description.

Fixed a bug where the academy guard would kick your character out of your house when your character was communicating with the story character Ayano Yoshida.

Fixed a bug where, after subscribing to Patreon, your subscription information would take an excessive amount of time to be added to the game's database, making it impossible to log in and receive your Patreon subscriber privileges. Everything now works instantly and as expected. The entire system was rewritten from scratch to avoid potential issues with this.

Fixed an issue where the game could throw exceptions when attempting to open the interaction interface with randomized NPCs, in the category with their rules.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw exceptions when attempting to create a cloud save in certain rare gameplay moments.

Fixed an issue where the game could freeze when attempting to play a minigame in the grocery store in certain rare instances when the player has a low-end device.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw exceptions when using certain items from your character's inventory in certain locations.

Fixed a bug where an exception could occur when attempting to open the equipping and changing clothing interface on your character if they had piercings or tattoos.

Fixed a bug where the game would throw exceptions in certain rare gameplay situations when your character interacted with a randomized NPC through the corresponding interaction menu.

Fixed an issue where your character's statistics could be incorrectly displayed in related interfaces.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in some rare cases when your character was in the same location as story-related characters of the RNPC type.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when opening the diary interface in some rare gameplay situations when opening a tab with story-related characters and plot hints.

Fixed an issue where the game could crash due to data initialization errors during game session generation without any apparent reason.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions due to NPC generation issues, which could lead to further interactions with them being accompanied by unnecessary exceptions and other issues.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when opening the NPC interaction interface, as well as when hovering the cursor/finger over an interaction to get hints.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when skipping time by 60 minutes in some rare gameplay scenarios where you used the Occultism Club interface and some residual data from it remained in the game.

Fixed a bug that prevented paid AI features from working for a while. Additionally, the functionality of this system has been improved in some regions where it was previously unavailable.

Fixed a bug that made it impossible to log into your Patreon/Boost account after subscribing, even if the subscription had been paid for. Everything appeared immediately and with an annoying delay.

Fixed a bug that prevented some Patreon subscriber features from working properly, making them unusable.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to collect a randomized NPC sprite when the NPC had certain mod parts and appearance details, such as tattoos.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in rare gameplay situations where the game couldn't determine where your character was or what location they were currently in.

Fixed a bug that could cause a filter applied to the NPC to slightly distort the game's image depending on the game's timing, ruining the overall gameplay experience.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash during a 60-minute time skip during certain time periods due to certain errors and getting stuck in a constant loop.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to create a copy of NPC data within the NPC caching module.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when unlocking perks in the corresponding Occultism Club interface with a certain probability.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to create a randomized NPC through the corresponding systems and generators.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to move from location to location in some rare gameplay situations when mods were installed and the corresponding framework was in use.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to freeze and crash when opening the diary interface, where you could view your character's attributes, upgrade perks, and view story hints.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash or experience a long micro-freeze in rare gameplay moments when purchasing perks through the corresponding interface in your character's diary.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when attempting to fast-forward more than 120 minutes due to some internal scripts that disrupted the time-skipping feature.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to have some issues displaying RNPC sprites if the player had recently added hairstyles.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when a randomized NPC was displayed on the screen during events involving them.

Fixed a bug that caused some phrases, buttons, and text in Russian to be displayed when playing in English or Chinese.

Fixed an issue that caused certain actions to require excessive energy.

Fixed a bug that could cause the system for determining the activity of randomized NPCs among themselves to ignore the current position of their NPCs, which could lead to exceptions/bugs when determining the other active NPC in a group activity.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to return incorrect and irrelevant values ​​for your character from a randomized NPC.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash without any exceptions during NPC generation for a game session without any apparent reason.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash without apparent reason when attempting to connect to your email or nickname in-game to gain game privileges.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash when attempting to use the mod system and the corresponding game tabs within the interface.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when attempting to process NPC data without being directly adjacent to the NPC, even before it had had time to decached.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to incorrectly display certain interfaces, causing them to lag or become overloaded. This primarily affected interfaces with the VPGrid screen.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw annoying exceptions when attempting to find ingredients through the corresponding location interactions in the "Forest" location.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions when using the appropriate location interactions in the "Cinema" location.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions/excessive freezes and bugs associated with the inability to play the game due to story events triggered from a shared pool with in-game time calculations.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw an exception in rare gameplay situations when an 18+ scene with randomized female NPCs was displayed on the screen due to an inability to load their breast data.

As you can see, a huge amount of content has been created, including interesting content that makes life easier, and generally adds variety to the game. Very soon, on November 27th, another full update will be released, bringing a huge amount of even more content and fixes—you can be sure of that. In addition, we will be working on optimization for a long time, bringing the game to perfection within this month. At least, that's what we'll try to do.